In a surprising script turn, The Max streaming service will be called HBO Max. If that is a name that sounds to you, it is for a good reason: it is the same name that the service already used in Spain until last year. This is a change that reveals to what extent streaming services have difficulty competing against Netflix, which has not changed its name since its inception.
It is a confusing situation. Originally, the HBO Max streaming service offered content related to the American television network HBO, so its name made a lot of sense. However, the constant mergers and treatment between different streaming services ended turning HBO Max into the absolute reference of Warner Bros. Discoveryoffering content of all kinds of sources and channels, including Discovery Channel, news channels such as CNN, and live sports broadcasts.
As a consequence, at 2023 Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced a complete streaming platform for the United States, which included A name change to “Max”; A very simple name, maybe too much. In his day it was criticized that it was a difficult name to search on the Internet, and that it did not have the same impact and originality as Netflix. In spite of everything, the company’s executives continued with the change, which finally expanded to Spain and the rest of the world in 2024.
Now, and less than a year after the change in Spain, Max changed his name again to HBO Max. The decision has been announced by the HBO and Max CEO, Casey Bloys, which has justified it as part of WBD’s “implicit commitment” to offer Recognizable, unique and “as we say in HBO, that it is worth paying”.
In other words, in WBD they seem to have realized that Max was a little recognizable nameand it has only taken two years than the rest of the world. Even so, Bloys states that change has not occurred in response to a possible crisis, stating that HBO Max is enjoying a “strong impulse.” In practice, everything indicates that the additional content that Max won has not been enough to attract subscribers, judging by the elimination of content related to Discovery in recent weeks.
At the moment, the change to HBO Max has been confirmed only for the United States, YnOr it is clear if the platform will continue to be called Max in Spainor if it will take a year to make the return to HBO Max as happened before. Be that as it may, it is unlikely that this name change will affect Max’s content offer, which has made a hole in Spain especially thanks to sports broadcasts, such as the fight between Ilyia Topuria and Max Holloway last October.
